by Nikki Wild
It wasn’t ideal to be home alone for a few days before seeing him again, especially with how strained we had been for a few years. But, at least I could be back home and settle back into how life was… before all this craziness.
All this craziness, I thought to myself again.
I grabbed a quick, meager student dinner with Christa and updated her on my plans. She was supportive of the idea and figured it would be a good way to “rebalance my energies.”
With my head hitting the pillow later that night, and a fistful of doubt weighing down my heart, I certainly goddamn hoped so.
Sunday night couldn’t come fast enough.
My classes felt like they were dragging on and on. I actually welcomed the extra homework load, just to have something to keep myself occupied for long stretches at a time.
It didn’t make much sense to drive home early that weekend to an empty house so, that Sunday afternoon, I finally took up Christa on her continuous offer to sit on a jam session with her musician friends.
We were all perched on overturned milk boxes and pallets while they improvised on their instruments. The players took turns strumming random melodic chords or playing various notes, sometimes joining together for a song. Somehow it all fit together into this evolving, musical beast that was soothing to hear, no matter how eclectic it got sometimes.
The mellow atmosphere and jovial banter between the players stole my attention away from the time. Everything kind of faded into the background as I listened along, and I wondered to myself why I hadn’t bothered to come along to any of these before.
With practice, they honestly could have been great performers. But the musicians clearly didn’t give a fuck about being up on a stage or playing to an audience; they were just palling around with the tapestry of sound, running high on life and a few beer bottles.
I could only admire them for that.
My roommate’s eyes stayed on her guy. Zack, she informed me with a giddy grin. After a few hookups, they’d recently decided to make the thing official. I felt bad that I hadn’t met the dude yet, but I could totally see why she was into him.
Zack had this young Kurt Cobain look to him. With a henna bandanna tied around his head, I rarely saw him without a laugh or a smile on his face. The guy looked like he just loved life. He had a lanky build and a slight hunch to his posture as he played, and his eyes kept sliding over to my best friend with warmth that I almost envied.
Christa and I weren’t the only ones watching the musicians work their improvised magic. There were a few other guys and girls seated along the edges, of our little circle watching them play; like me, they seemed scattered and lost, brought into this circle by circumstance, only to be enraptured by the music.
The clock struck midnight six hours early, and the magic ended. I realized that I was already late into hitting the road, and that nightfall was inevitable before I struck home.
Christa beamed as I stumbled through a million rushed thanks, trying to explain how relieved and unburdened I felt with the energy in the room. I must have apologized to her a dozen times for not being able to stick around and properly meet Zack.
“You’re rambling,” she slyly smiled, pushing me towards the door with her hands on my shoulders. “I’ll let him know you loved it. Now, get the hell on that highway, and God help you if you don’t text me to say you made it back safe.”
There was no way that I argue with that.
I threw my arms around her and wished her well before walking towards my car, a bounce in my step and my keys twirling on their ring around my finger.
Five long hours on the road stood between home – way on the other side of Pennsylvania – and my parked little sedan.
Which is why I wish I hadn’t checked my notifications as I beeped the car unlocked...
Chloe
Driving westbound back to Pittsburgh, try as I might, I could barely focus on the Spotify playlist that poured from the car speakers.
What sucked was not knowing how to react.
After weeks of radio silence, Damian Clarke had chosen that particular moment to break the deafening quiet… and he did it in fucking style, the tremendous prick.
But my anger was steeped in anticipation.
Meet me tomorrow at your father’s house.
I had not responded, but that didn’t stop the app from registering that I’d seen it. Sometimes silence itself is all the answer you can give, but if I’d at least had some time to think about it…
Forgive me; I’m getting off-track. Doesn’t matter how I spin it: you and I both know that I had plenty of time to think about it.
I had five hours of it, in fact.
Five long, troubling hours…
My very first impulse was to tell him where to shove his demand after he’d gone ghost on me.
After all, why shouldn’t I? The bastard had vanished without a trace or an explanation, clearly dropping me like a discarded toy.
Is that honestly all that I am to him?
A toy? Ready to be cast aside?
I peered along the side of westbound I-76, deciding whether or not the parked white car on the shoulder was a cruiser or not. My foot tapped the break, but it was just a briefly abandoned car on a jack. I settled into my seat with a breath of relief, noting that I’d been absentmindedly flying fifteen over the limit.
Interstate 76 west – well, more accurately the Pennsylvania Turnpike after a short while on the road – was going to be virtually my entire route back to Pittsburgh. At least it won’t be boring, I thought to myself as I scanned the mountains on the horizon. I’d only been this way once, coming from the other direction, and I’d had the luxury of a high sun.
Although that hadn’t been useful in the tunnels, it had afforded me a beautiful look at the Laurel Highlands, the nature attraction for hikers and outdoors adventurers on the Philadelphia side of things.
But the sun was already waning by the time I hit the Highlands, so I reluctantly ignored them and continued onward. The interstate was going to wind through terrifying mountain tunnels and past a windmill farm.
With decent light conditions, it was quite the picturesque drive. The really scenic drive would have been to head further up and take I-80 west – adding a full extra hour to my drive – but that was a level of commitment I just wasn’t ready to give.
Besides, the whole already sunset thing put a damper on that idea before the get-go.
The hours passed as Spotify continued down the road trip playlist I’d catered for this journey. All the empowering female anthems and uplifting pop tracks seemed empty now, only underlining how confused and irritated I was.
Damian Clarke…
How could he have possibly known that Dad was going to be out of town?
From everything I’d come to learn about Damian, it didn’t exactly stretch the imagination that maybe he didn’t actually know I was already heading to my family home.
This could have just been him asserting his dominance in my life, even after such a gap… making this all just a coincidence.
Although, that still didn’t explain how he knew about my father’s business ventures…
I thought about asking him that.
Just whipping my phone open, thumbing to the Candy Companions app, and giving him a brief piece of my mind. Better yet, I could take the firm, stoic road, demanding answers before giving any other kind of response.
A heavy sigh left my chest.
Yeah… that would work, and I didn’t doubt that Damian would supply the answers I so desperately wanted. But it was clear as day to me that he’d see that as a breach of our terms, bowing up to him in such an undisciplined way.
I’d get the truth and a pink slip.
Which was fine. It would take a little more than dominance and a few orgasms to shake how hurt and frustrated with him I was.
But what if he had a reasonable explanation?
Is that even likely?
That’s when I realized the choice th
at lay in front of me, as I pulled towards the tunnels that would clear me through the coming mountains and further towards home.
It wasn’t just a simple matter of yes or no to his ridiculous, outlandish proposition.
Everything – all the frustration, all the unanswered questions – they all rode on this moment, tucked away ahead in the shadows. If I were to have any real chance at learning the truth about the last few weeks, I would have to play along.
If that was true, and I honestly felt that it was, then all of this could only mean one of two very different things:
Either I really was a toy to him…
Or he was testing me.
Choice number one meant that I was a gullible fool and he was a total prick after all.
The alternative was that he was holding back what he must have known that I needed. It had become the reward, the incentive for me to continue playing this game between us.
Was this the game I wanted to play?
I could get over him, I knew. It would take a long period of letting go, because Damian Clarke had given me something I understood was rare in this world.
It wasn’t financial security as an otherwise struggling college student. In fact, it had nothing to do with the money. There was no price tag on my heart, and there never would be. As Christa kindly pointed out, my authoritative admirer had already paid off my student loan; at this point, grad school was next on the agenda…
In his very own, standoffish way, this intense and uncompromising man had given me a deeper, more intuitive understanding of my own needs, my desires, and how to fulfill them. I knew now that, to be truly happy, I needed a strong, powerful force in my life to help guide me. It didn’t have to be sexual. As he had taught me, dominant strength came in many forms. But this force did have to be authoritative.
Whether he meant to teach me this or not, I knew that I didn’t need him to be that force. If I was being honest with myself, it didn’t have to be another person at all…
Maybe I could cultivate it myself, pull it from deep within. I certainly felt that I could learn to be strong enough to do it.
Maybe I even knew where to start.
The mental picture I craved so much – that of the intimidating, sharply-dressed man, one hand against the small of my back and the other raising a bare palm – could become less a memory and more a project, one that I would forge through time and perseverance; diligently, I would work and rework it like a hot stone, fashioning it into the sparkling diamond that would become the foundation of my strength.
I, Chloe Farah Lockwood, would need no man, nor master.
The very thought pulled my lips into a smile, but there was little sincerity behind it. Sure, I could go that route. Waving the metaphor aside, my next few years could be spent trying to figure out how to get myself into that headspace without him, or another like him.
The problem was…
That just didn’t sound very fun.
It definitely didn’t sound as enjoyable as the thought of hearing how his belt unbuckled in the silence of his office, my palms on that beautiful Cherrywood executive desk as he prepared to fuck me into full submission – a deep, unquestioning submission that I willingly gave.
Trusting him. Needing him.
And thus, I had come back full circle.
Within my mind, there was no denying that I deserved to know why. Why he had abandoned me, why he knew my father was gone, why he felt he could come and go without warning.
And if all of this rampant speculation turned out to be true – if these hours locked alone in a moving vehicle with nothing but my thoughts planted my feet at the right conclusion – then there really was no other choice.
Even now, he still controlled me.
Even now, I still let him.
Even now, it still felt good.
I feel like I probably nodded to myself at that moment. My focus on the road became undivided as I took in the details of the darkening land around my car and the taillights of the car a few lengths ahead. My eyes had never once drifted from the road, and I remembered now that I’d tapped the brakes at the sight of another car – this time, actually a cruiser, luckily enough. I’d been driving like a robot – safely, intuitively – but now I wasn’t making good time anymore.
It wasn’t that big a deal to me. I felt confident in my choice, and the first genuine smile crossed my lips since slipping my key into the ignition.
The tunnel entrance finally loomed just ahead. It would be seconds before I passed into the mountain on my way to my childhood home, the last place I had seen Damian Clarke before he left my life… that is, until a simple message on my smartphone completely changed my life.
As it continued to wirelessly Bluetooth my Spotify playlist over the speakers, I dropped my cell back into its little crook in the passenger seat. But not before I made sure it sent off the words…
“Yes, Daddy.”
Chloe
For as long as I can possibly remember, the house in Shadyside has been home to me.
My car hit the concrete around half past eleven that night. The same familiar, spacious house filled the corner at the edge of the hill, its orange brick walls and dark brown windowsills gazing out onto two streets.
I was pleased to see that Dad hadn’t bothered scheduling the outward renovations after all. He’d been talking about that for months before I left for university, and I had always admired the cracks and indentions in the brickwork.
None of it had seemed ready to fall apart; in many ways, at least to me, the imperfections added character to the house – as if they were what were really holding it together all along.
Avoiding my old nemesis, the unfixed driveway pothole, I finally parked my sedan in the garage. I savored being here again for a moment, but then I retrieved my suitcase from the backseat and closed up, eager to get on.
Ever the hopeful and thoughtful, Dad had insisted I keep a house key; I quickly let myself in and plunked my heavy suitcase onto the dark, hardwood floors. My fingertips easily found the light switches, and I brought the house to life.
The house was clean but relatively scattered, which meant that his daily maid service had finally hit the chopping block.
About time, I groaned.
She wasn’t worth whatever he was paying, given that even I could clean faster and better than her – plus, she was always sharp and snarky with me. But she had been my father’s maid for seven years, and he was never fond of change.
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with her barging in at odd hours. I really would be alone for the first few days.
Oh wait, I remembered.
Not for long…
I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. That was a bullet fucking dodged, and I hadn’t even realized it. The very last thing I needed was for my father’s stupid cleaner to come in unannounced, only to spot a strange older man in his daughter’s company…
Before I got settled, I wandered from room to room, flicking on the lights briefly to examine the aftermath of a widowed businessman having fired his maid.
Besides a few forgotten glasses here or there, some jumbled pages scattered on a couch or a bottle of wine forgotten on an end table, Dad had mostly held it all together.
At least you didn’t turn into a slob!
Ignoring the constant reminder in my head that Damian Clarke was coming here in under twenty-four hours, I locked up the place and brought my luggage back to my old bedroom.
It was just as I’d left it, to my lack of surprise. The dust on the countertops and the light mustiness in the air were a testament to the maid’s attention to detail, so I opened a window and ran a cloth over a few surfaces.
Deciding that my focus needed to be on Damian when he arrived – whenever that would be – I went ahead and unpacked the basics.
While I was loading up my suitcase the night before, I didn’t know when I’d see him again. It had certainly never crossed my mind that I’d be seeing him again so soon – and with a frus
trated groan, I realized that I’d probably way over-packed as a result.
I opened the closet to hang a few clothes, and of course the extras I’d left behind were still on the racks. I really should have asked him about this, I muttered inside.
My eyes trailed to the open suitcase on the bed, the topmost clothes haphazardly pulled and flowing over the edges.
I could have just done without you, huh?
A glance at the clock told me that I’d already been here upwards of an hour. Hastily, I pushed my suitcase into the closet, dragging some of my essentials to the bathroom, and doing a sleepy, condensed version of my nightly routine.
It was nearing one in the morning when I finally slumped down into bed, my head spinning with the anticipation of seeing Damian again.
Sleep took its sweet time to arrive; when it did, my dreams were drenched with decadence.
The doorbell rang at a quarter to nine. With mounting dread and anticipation, I peeled myself away from my paperback and quietly paused behind the front door.
I can stop this right now, I thought.
But I knew I was lying to myself.
Through the keyhole, I briefly studied the fish-eye perspective of Damian Clarke. Standing still and confidently, he was as sharply dressed as ever; the stern, focused features of his face were in profile as he gazed down the street.
My hand hesitated around the doorknob. It briefly rattled in my nervous grip, but Damian didn’t shift an inch.
Remember to breath, I chastised myself as I let out the seized lungful of air.
Feeling as if I stood trembling on the edge of a harrowing precipice, ready to plunge over the cliff towards my destiny, I unbolted the front door and pulled it aside.
Standing just in front of me, Damian Clarke turned his handsome, stoic face towards me. The dark, cool glint in his gaze locked onto my eyes, and I felt a gasp catch in my throat. With just a look, his power entranced me in an instant.
“Baby girl,” he murmured.
I realized that his thumb was tracing my bottom lip, his eyes still firmly on mine.